1. Field of the Invention
Microchannel plates with particular reference to improvements in method of manufacturing same.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Prior art methods of manufacturing microchannel plates involve the steps of assembling a great number of glass tubes in side-by-side relationship with each other and drawing the bundle in a single step to a finished cross-sectional size.
A glass tube heated sufficiently to change size due to drawing forces is also soft enough to be effected by surface tension forces acting on the tube. These forces cause thickening of the wall sizes of tubes as their outside diametral size is decreased, thus decreasing or shrinking the relative size of tube opening in each case. Additionally, in the usual array of tubes used for making microchannel devices, a differential shrinkage, (reduction of inner diametral size of tubes relative to their respective other diametral sizes) has the tendency to distort the outer shape of the whole array and produce non-uniform pore or channel size of openings in the resulting structure.
This invention provides for the drawing of bundles of glass tubes to desired reduced microchannel size with negligible effect of surface tension forces and greater control of size and shape of microchannels.